Whittier resident to show off her work at L.A. Fashion Week

Tatiana Shabelnik models two of her designs she just received from Belarus.

It’s a long way from Minsk to Los Angeles.

It’s a long way from library science to the world of runways, models and international fashion design, too.

But Whittier resident Tatiana Shabelnik has made both those journeys and will be showing her work at L.A. Fashion Week on March 10.

“This is my very first big show,” said Shabelnik, in a Russian accent.

“There is a whole piece where models will be walking one by one. That’s the biggest piece,” she said of the show. “And at the very end (of the show) I put long dresses. And the long dresses theme is going to be choreographed.”

Shabelnik, 45, was born in Belarus, an eastern European country bordered by Russia to the northeast, while the country was still part of the Soviet Union. It was in her home town of Minsk, she says, where her love of fashion design sprouted.

Her mother, Ludmila, was a physicist at the Academy of Science of Belarus who took up sewing to earn money for the family. Tatiana made designs for her paper dolls, and her mother started sewing Tatiana’s designs.

“I grew up with my mom,” she said. “She divorced my father when I was like 6 or 7, I don’t remember. And my mom, she learned how to sew really, really well so she could make extra income.

“So I basically grew up with all the sewing magazines. She would make clothes for me, and I would sketch what I wanted.”

At 16, her hopes of attending fashion school were disappointed.

“The fashion school, the university that was teaching fashion design was in another city. My mom didn’t really want me to leave there.

“I decided I wanted to go in Minsk to the academy of arts, which was very competitive and very bureaucratic, so I didn’t get in,” she said. “I ended up in library science. That’s the story. But the arts idea never left me.”

Later, she applied for a scholarship for graduate studies in the United States, and earned her master’s degree in Library and Information Science at Louisiana State University. She then got her first job in the U.S., as a librarian and Web team manager, at Michigan Technical University, where she also began work on a doctorate in rhetoric and technical communication, she said.

In 2001, she was hired as Web manager for Whittier College. She also was hired as an adjunct librarian at Rio Hondo College for a stint.

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But her passion for fashion never waned, and in 2012 she decided to enroll in fashion-design classes at Otis College. Within a year she launched a line of shawls and scarves. She also started sketching and producing a clothing line for women called “Contrast.”

Her style, which she calls globally influenced, uses an interplay of bold colors and mixes textures that reflect her international experience. Her current collection includes pieces in leather, silk and chiffon, and was inspired, she said, by the works of artists Wassily Kandinsky of Russia and Mark Chagall, who was born in Belarus.

She has her clothes custom made in Belarus, where her mother still lives. She visits about once a year.

Shabelnik currently works as Web interactive services manager at Claremont McKenna College, but hopes that someday she will be able to work full time in fashion.

“That is my ultimate goal, but of course I wouldn’t leave academia unless I have millions,” she said, and laughed. “I am not one of those struggling designers.

“If I get huge investors, then yes,” she said. “But for now I am realistic.”

Still, she has big dreams to feature her work at other fashion shows.

“My ultimate goal is Milan,” she said. “I want to do New York next time, and I want to do Milan, Paris and London.”